Newsletter

Help keep good things going in Hardeeville

Thanks for picking up a copy of the paper and turning to my increasingly popular column. There is usually good reading here depending on your interests.

I was off my monthly guest column schedule because I had that common condition all the best writer’s get, “writers’ block.” I didn’t even know I was qualified to get it, but now I have a great story to tell so on with it.

Let’s talk volunteers and helping Hardeeville. I was invited to attend a meeting a couple months ago regarding the Hardeeville Catfish Festival. This was what I call an organizational meeting by Bill Stanley, he is head of the Marine Rescue Squadron which is the group that heads up the Catfish Festival. He was organizing and soliciting volunteers to help with the Catfish Festival, which is normally held in September each year.

The Catfish Festival is the largest and most well-known festival in the Hardeeville area and attracts thousands. It provides a nice economic “bump” for the local businesses because the vendors and suppliers come to town to set up their booths, rides, games etc. There is usually high quality live entertainment to go along with good old fashioned local events such as a beauty contest, baking contest (and sales) and in the past a nice parade.

It’s a great family entertainment type of event and you don’t have to worry about anything bad happening because Hardeeville’s finest are on the job and the event is held in and around the athletic fields behind Hardeeville’s City Hall, so the area is easily protected. Back to Bill’s meeting; he listed the committees that are necessary to pull off this festival and it is surprising how many there are. As an example there are entertainment, vendor, contest, infrastructure, administrative and ticket committees, just to name a few. Within each committee are detailed tasks that need to be accomplished by the committee in a time certain fashion, such as you need to have the vendors signed up well before September and so on.

Needless to say the city is helping with volunteers from the staff and in other ways because of what the festival means to the community. This event has history, a very good track record and a good future as long as those that can help do help.

To Bill and his crew of helpers (I have to remember to do a follow up column after the festival and mention everyone) they are doing a job that is tough to do in terms of tasks and time, but the rewards are big, although not financial. Did I say I say financial? Well let’s talk about that, too. Volunteers are the back bone of events such as the Catfish festival, but at some point you have to start writing checks or paying in cash. This is what I mean; when you want to schedule live entertainment, you need to make a deposit, when you want to schedule vendors you need to make a deposit, when you want to make T-shirts available you need to make a deposit or pay in full. So despite all the hard work of the many volunteers, eventually you need to have “seed” money to make it happen.

Now for the big finish; if you are a Hardeeville business, maybe you want to help with a donation, if you are a resident of the area in general and enjoy supporting small town activities, by all means contribute, if you are an organization in charge of distributing money for such events, help keep the good things going in Hardeeville, if you really want to see Hardeeville’s Catfish Festival succeed, please help Bill and his volunteer crew.